Pangu joins govt so it can be a player: Basil

PANGU Pati leader Sam Basil, pictured, has brushed aside suggestions that he backslid on criticisms he made of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and has also betrayed the people of Morobe by joining the People’s National Congress-led government. Asked about the sudden about-turn, he said yesterday that the people had elected O’Neill’s party again to govern the country for the next five years. “We’ve done our part in trying to change government,” he said. “We don’t have the numbers, so all I can say is that Papua New Guineans have chosen their government, and now we have made the choice to join PNC. “This is all politics.” Basil, who had run a very anti-government and anti-PNC campaign in the general election, said there were “two sides to the coin: government and opposition”. He said the government looked after the nation and was mandated by the people. “They’ve got majority on the floor (of parliament). “Pangu Pati decides to join the government so that we can also be a player, to make sure that we implement policies of the PNC-led government.” On Morobe, he said: “It’s up to me as the party leader to go back and explain to my people.”